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SAAB Gripen and Gripen NG thread #4

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Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 2 (0 members and 2 guests)

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You are certainly not false. You perspective is clear and correct. Unfortunately some of the posters here have as the Dutch say, 'long toes'. They are stepped on too easily.
A number of them do insult many here on the forum, they however are very upset when it happens to them. They can give it but they can't take it......
Oh, btw, they can post very pretty graphs and pictures. The veracity of them though is questionable..

I had never heard that phrase before. Thank you. Speaking of pretty pictures, Urban obliges. Urban was the first person here (not the last) to be rude to me so special place in my heart for him.

This forum is insanely toxic in the way posters treat one another. Its like divorced couple arguing over their children

The Gripen Demo NG is an NG.. We can spend hours arguing about whether it's a true "prototype" or just a heavily reworked Gripen B under a private initiative financed by the industry but the fact is that it is an NG. It has a new airframe with additional fuel capacity, two rows of fuselage pylons, new landing gear, F414-GE engine, new satcom equipment, electro-optical RWR and MAWS by Avitronics, as well as the Vixen 1000E AESA radar. Whatever changes have been proposed for the final config prototype from your link, they will hardly be discernible..

Saab when will you learn?

Very exciting new though, I hope they webcast it so I can watch and there is some Q&A I am interested in seeing the external changes

Your rebuttal was brilliant. "ill call him a troll and no will notice I was horrifically wrong!" Seamless, you totally preserved your rep there. No one noticed at all. Feel free to write a rebuttal in that thread, rather than whining about me in another thread.

Comment

For the Swiss eval, all companies were given the chance to describe the 2015 version of their a/c. Of course they used the infamous "credibility factor" to downscale capabilities according to their state of development, however it is to be expected, the Swiss are careful people.

Indeed it was, and the Gripen suffered from it the most out of the three contestants, yet it was deemed good enough and chosen as the final bid.

The Norwegian competition was "rigged" in the sense that Gripen would not have won even if it had been a fully stealthy 5. gen a/c offered at a lower price than F-35; however it was not really necessary to rig it since the requirements were put very high and Gripen did not meet all technical requirements.

The nonsense about pricing in Norway; I don't know why they did that, perhaps just to make the F-35 more acceptable to the anti-US left-wing party that was in government at that time; they stated they wanted the cheapest solution (which was assumed to be Gripen).

The deciding factor did not come from specifications in the Norwegian competition, but rather from the deciding factor of cost and subjective reflections on what would come to be the Norwegian future needs.

The whole problem with the Norwegian competition was that a choice had been made prior to the competition even taking place. It wasted the time of Saab, the Swedish Defense and everyone involved, not to mention all the possible local norwegian producers and manufacturers that would have been involved in the process if the contract would have landed on the Gripen.

The Norwegians had all the right to choose the F-35, no doubt about it, it was just the manner of which it was done.

Regarding Finland; I agree that Saab may have small chance however as you say the Finns are very much focused on bang for the bucks, and unlike what you are claiming the F-35 costs are coming down (I suggest you visit the F-35 thread and ask Spud and the other experts about that).

I think you've misunderstood the term "bang for the buck".

The current and most recent unit cost for the LRIP F-35A is $94.8 million [excluding the engine]. And that's without any specific national requests. It has gone down from the LRIP 1 prices, as expected, but it's not close to its target goal.

The hopeful estimate of $60MUSD per F-35A was quoted at around 3000 A/C being manufactured in total, which included full orders from all expected customers and potential customers. The production rate has been ramped down with 20 A/C aswell. And this is all without experiencing any new problems that might ramp up the price. The costs are going down, I'm not arguing you on that, but to such a level that the F-35 would be cheap to buy, maintain and operate, now that's a bold claim. Especially since the F-35 is still significantly more expensive to operate than the F-16 and F/A-18.

Finlands "bang for the buck" is however something still rooted deep within its military structure. This is something the Gripens thrives in. The Gripen has excellent records of low maintenance per flight hour, low operational costs and is yet a fighter with relatively long range, more than capable of covering Finlands needs. Not to mention national cooperation and local industrial benefits that the Finns seem to value highly.

The Gripen stands well above "a small chance" in Finland.

Comment

The current and most recent unit cost for the LRIP F-35A is $94.8 million [excluding the engine]. And that's without any specific national requests. It has gone down from the LRIP 1 prices, as expected, but it's not close to its target goal.

The hopeful estimate of $60MUSD per F-35A was quoted at around 3000 A/C being manufactured in total, which included full orders from all expected customers and potential customers. The production rate has been ramped down with 20 A/C aswell. And this is all without experiencing any new problems that might ramp up the price. The costs are going down, I'm not arguing you on that, but to such a level that the F-35 would be cheap to buy, maintain and operate, now that's a bold claim. Especially since the F-35 is still significantly more expensive to operate than the F-16 and F/A-18.

Finlands "bang for the buck" is however something still rooted deep within its military structure. This is something the Gripens thrives in. The Gripen has excellent records of low maintenance per flight hour, low operational costs and is yet a fighter with relatively long range, more than capable of covering Finlands needs. Not to mention national cooperation and local industrial benefits that the Finns seem to value highly.

The Gripen stands well above "a small chance" in Finland.

No doubt even in 2025 F-35 will still be a rather expensive a/c; however I think the price will come down quite a lot compared to where it is today. The other important factor to consider in the "bang for the bucks" is not just the "bucks" but the "bang". If they can afford the "right" number of F-35 then it can stand on it's own without any further support. However if they go for Gripen, then, looking post 2030, I think more is needed; more fighter jets, but also other equipment.

Comment

The current and most recent unit cost for the LRIP F-35A is $94.8 million [excluding the engine]. And that's without any specific national requests. It has gone down from the LRIP 1 prices, as expected, but it's not close to its target goal.

The hopeful estimate of $60MUSD per F-35A was quoted at around 3000 A/C being manufactured in total, which included full orders from all expected customers and potential customers. The production rate has been ramped down with 20 A/C aswell. And this is all without experiencing any new problems that might ramp up the price. The costs are going down, I'm not arguing you on that, but to such a level that the F-35 would be cheap to buy, maintain and operate, now that's a bold claim. Especially since the F-35 is still significantly more expensive to operate than the F-16 and F/A-18.

Finlands "bang for the buck" is however something still rooted deep within its military structure. This is something the Gripens thrives in. The Gripen has excellent records of low maintenance per flight hour, low operational costs and is yet a fighter with relatively long range, more than capable of covering Finlands needs. Not to mention national cooperation and local industrial benefits that the Finns seem to value highly.

The Gripen stands well above "a small chance" in Finland.

Another factor to weigh in is how much it costs to adjust the air force bases for the F-35. Norway and Australia is using well over 1 billion USD for this purpose alone.

Comment

The current and most recent unit cost for the LRIP F-35A is $94.8 million [excluding the engine]. And that's without any specific national requests. It has gone down from the LRIP 1 prices, as expected, but it's not close to its target goal.

Try $94.3 millionwith the engine. Unit recurring flyaway cost for 2016. Well on course to achieve the target goal (
In fact, if the plan for the block buy goes ahead, they could probably bring the cost in below $80 mil. The Gripen E will of course beat that figure but not by a huge margin, not with all the performance upgrades planned. The F-35 CPFH estimate was about 28% higher than the F-16C/D (in same weight class as the Gripen E), and that's from when the oil prices were still sky high (and thanks to the shale revolution they're unlikely to ever go up that high again).

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There is one but it is only used for training the pilots for international missions. It's not used in the daily activities of the air force. This is unlikely to change in the future.

My thinking was that if you were to have a credible defence alliance with Finland perhaps you would need a couple of tankers -- after all Sweden-Finland covers a quite large land and sea area, and although the Gripen is long-legged in an a2a config, for e.g. an a2g config the range will drop quite a lot.

Imagine if Finnish Gripen are to support defending south of Sweden; or that Sweden needs to support North East of Finland.

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Try $94.1 millionwith the engine. Unit recurring flyaway cost for 2016. Well on course to achieve the target goal (
In fact, if the plan for the block buy goes ahead, they could probably bring the cost in below $80 mil. The Gripen E will of course beat that figure but not by a huge margin, not with all the performance upgrades planned. The F-35 CPFH estimate was about 28% higher than the F-16C/D (in same weight class as the Gripen E), and that's from when the oil prices were still sky high (and thanks to the shale revolution they're unlikely to ever go up that high again).

what are "all the performance upgrades" you are referring to?

I think it's difficult to predict Gripen E costs at this point in time; it really depends on how many customers they manage to get by the time Finland is doing the evaluation. Due to Brazil now being a partner in the Gripen project, there is a good chance that several South American countries will go for Gripen E. There are also several opportunities in Asia, of which the biggest would be India. If India decides to go for Gripen, it could change things, in particular when it comes to upgrade costs.

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i read just the other day IFF is also latest possible tech,
ir/radar/maws/ew/DL/decoupled avionics/...as far as i can see, nothing is left of the old avionics,
in fact its later tech than F-35,
the savings is going to come through operational cost